Montecito Heights, by Colin Campbell

It’s not always what you did that gets you sent down. It’s what I can convince the jury that you did.

You think everyone I sent to prison was guilty of what they were sent to prison for? They were all guilty, though. Of something. You’re guilty of something. I just haven’t figured out what yet.

—Jim Grant

MONTECITO HEIGHTS

MONTECITO HEIGHTS A RESURRECTION MAN NOVEL

COLIN CAMPBELL Midnight Ink

woodbury, minnesota

Montecito Heights: A Resurrection Man Novel © 2014 by Colin Campbell. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Edition First Printing, 2014 Cover design: Kevin R. Brown Cover illustration: Steven McAfee Midnight Ink, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover model used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Campbell, Colin, 1955– Montecito heights: a Resurrection Man novel / Colin Campbell.—First Edition. pages cm.—(A Resurrection Man novel; #2) ISBN 978-0-7387-3632-7 1. Police—England—Yorkshire—Fiction. 2. British—California—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6103.A48M66 2014 823'.92—dc23 2013042073 Midnight Ink Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.midnightinkbooks.com Printed in the United States of America

For Dad … still in my heart And for Mam … still here

PART ONE

Lying by omission is still lying.

I prefer to be more open and up front. —Jim Grant

ONE The girl with the pierced nipples and the row of tattooed stars on either side of her crotch squatted beside the cream leather settee and began to kiss the man’s hairy chest. The hairs were sparse and wiry and matched the ones covering his back and shoulders. This was not a young man. The girl was maybe eighteen or nineteen. He was toned and well preserved. She was slim and gorgeous. Her short black hair, gelled into a short, spiky cut, bobbed slightly with the movement of her head. Her small, firm breasts didn’t move at all.

She slid one hand up the side of the guy’s stomach and made small circling movements just out of reach of where he really wanted her to circle. The strain of crouching next to him brought cords of muscle to the surface of her soft, tanned skin. Her stomach looked flat and solid, a testament to hours in the gym or a very active outdoor lifestyle. Riding would be a good guess.

The thing she would soon be riding trembled to life. Slowly. This was not a young man.

He moaned as her hand accidentally brushed his manhood— one of those accidents that are destined to be. Destined because that’s what having sex is all about. She let her hand curl up like a 3

crab until only her fingertips touched his skin. Long, sharp nails, painted black, scraped his stomach. Sparks of excitement twitched his manhood even more. The hand flattened, the palm feeling warm on his flesh as it slid down his stomach, bypassing the erection that was finally beginning to grow, caressing his inner thigh all the way down to the knee.

Her lips kissed and sucked his chest. Hairs tickled her nose but she didn’t stop. A wet, pink tongue flicked out. She worked her way from his chest to his stomach, then paused. The girl was staring victory in the face. A bobbing head that would have smiled if it had a mouth. She had a mouth. She blew gently, the cold air making the glistening head twitch. Her face remained impassive. Following the example of her hand, she bypassed the erection and began kissing his thigh, licking it a couple of times for good measure.

Then the scenic window behind them opened smoothly on its runners, and another woman came in. She appeared shocked to see the couple performing on the couch. Behind her, sunshine bathed the garden in warm light. A decorative arch framed downtown Los Angeles in the background. She closed the door quietly and watched for a few seconds. The girl had worked her head between the man’s thighs and was licking all the way up to his testicles. Whenever her tongue flicked the sagging pink balls, his member twitched into full erection.

The woman near the window couldn’t wait anymore. She unzipped her dress and slipped it from her shoulders, revealing a skimpy bra and a sequined triangle that barely covered the triangle beneath it. Her breasts were much bigger than the girl’s and strained at the fabric of the bra. She quickly released them with a flick of the catch. The weight pulled the strap apart, and the bra dropped to the carpet.

4

The man was oblivious to the intruder. He was focusing elsewhere—until the woman knelt beside him on the settee and dangled her breasts over his face. That got his attention. Her nipples were hard as bullets, the crinkly areola dark and inviting. He didn’t need a second invitation. He craned his neck upwards and clamped his lips over the first nipple he could reach.

The girl finally crawled up the man’s thigh and licked his shaft.

For an older guy it was borderline impressive. She wet her hand with spit and encircled him. Her lips nibbled and teased all the way up to the head, then she opened her mouth and—

Jim Grant pressed eject. The DVD stopped, and the disc tray eased out the front of the machine. He’d seen enough. He took the disc and clicked it into its display case. The cover was gaudy and colorful, with naked women and erect penises and big red lettering.

The Hunt for Pink October. He dropped the box on the smoked-glass coffee table and sat back on the Chesterfield settee. Dark leather, not cream. Old school, not modern.

The study was large and airy. The windows looked out onto a garden that was well tended and bordered by pine trees and palms.

Grant thought the contrast looked strange, but this was Los Angeles.

Everything he’d seen since he got here looked strange. There was a full-height bookcase against the back wall and a grandfather clock beside the door. A solid wooden desk with green leather inlay stood in front of the bookcase. The furnishings screamed money. The room should have smelled of cracked leather and cigar smoke, but instead the air was filled with the scent of flowers from the garden.

One window was open. Grant could hear a lawnmower droning in the background.

5

“No need to ask which one’s your daughter.”

“No.” Dick Richards wasn’t sitting behind the desk. The fifty-nineyear-old senator sat in a matching Chesterfield chair, one leg draped lazily across his knee. He was dressed casual, in slacks and an opennecked shirt, but his body language was anything but casual, despite the draped leg. He turned the TV off using the remote but didn’t bother getting up to close the cabinet built into the bookcase.

Grant didn’t speculate on what having two Dicks in your name must have been like growing up. The senator had obviously done all right for himself. Having his daughter working in the porn industry was proving more difficult. That was why Grant was here. Saving US senators from their excesses was becoming a habit for him. At least this time he was being paid. Not exactly official, but still a cop.

Sort of.

As always, he went for the direct approach. “Why don’t you just ask her to stop?”

Richards dropped the remote on the coffee table. “Do you have children?”

“No.” “Well, if you did, you’d know that asking a teenager to do anything results in them doing exactly the opposite.”

“So, ask her to keep making porn films.”

“Movies.”

“Yeah, I keep forgetting. When I was a kid, me and some mates used to go to the pictures—Saturday morning matinees. Old blackand-white serials, a bunch of cartoons, and a short feature. It was always a picture house, not a cinema.”

“They are called motion pictures for a reason.”

6

“They move. Yes, I get that. But in Yorkshire it was still ‘the pictures.’ ” “You come highly recommended. I hope you have assimilated by now.”

“With the American culture? I get by. It’s not what you know, it’s knowing who to ask.”

“Asking implies other people being involved. Nobody must know about this.”

“Her picture’s on the video sleeve.”

“DVD. Not an angle you’d recognize her from.”

“True. She’s not using her given name?”

“A pseudonym.”

“And the makers don’t know who she is?”

“I believe that is the case. Yes.” “That’s a start, then.”

The lawnmower was growing louder. The expanse of grass outside was the size of a soccer pitch. The gardener must be getting toward the end nearest the house. The mansion, Grant corrected himself. A helicopter throbbed away in the distance. Since he’d arrived in LA he didn’t think there’d been a single hour without an eye-in-the-sky chopper buzzing around, either police or news.

Between that and the constant airline traffic from LAX, the sky was alive with the sound of engines. Add in the intermittent sirens and the ever-present freeway traffic and you had a recipe for mechanical exhaustion.

Senator Richards uncrossed his legs. “Discretion is paramount.”

“Like the studio?”

“Essential.”

7

Grant detected a hint of disdain. The wealthy man was talking down to his servant and not liking the servant’s tone. Grant didn’t like to be talked down to. He didn’t like people who thought they were better than everyone else. But this was a job.

“Discretion is my middle name.”

“You weren’t very discreet in Boston.”

“Twenty-four-hour news. They got that here?”

“They showed that everywhere.”

Grant leaned forward and picked up the glass of Pepsi he’d been drinking. Ice and lemon. The ice had almost melted. The lemon was still fresh. Senator Richards’ butler or manservant or whatever he was couldn’t provide a pint of Tetley’s. It was too early for beer anyway. He took a swig and felt the coolness soothe his throat. Dry heat always did that to him. He’d been in drier and hotter places, dusty and dangerous places. Putting the arm on a porn movie producer should be a piece of cake. He nodded as he spoke.

“Looks like if you can’t get her to stop, we’ll just have to persuade the film company it’s in their best interests to find somebody else.”

“Movie company.”

“I think that’s elevating the porn industry a bit, don’t you?”

Grant put the glass down and picked up the DVD case. The sleeve was faded and badly printed. A pirate copy. He opened the box and checked the disc. Same thing: badly printed adhesive disc label. He turned the case over and read the back. Phony cast names and a ridiculous plot summary completed the low-rent nature of the business. He remembered a disc jockey in Yorkshire who called himself Big Dick Swelling. It got a laugh on a Saturday night. He doubted Big Dick Richards would see the funny side.

8

What Grant was looking for wasn’t there—the address of the production company that made the film. It might have been there on the original sleeve, but this copy was so bad that any small lettering disappeared in a haze of smudged ink and penises. Or was that peni? He gave up trying to read it.

“Better give me her address.”

“I’d rather you didn’t speak to her about this.”

“And I’d rather be six feet four and built like a brick shithouse.”

“You are six feet four.”

“True. We sometimes get what we wish for. I won’t talk to her.

Just a precaution. After I’ve talked to the producer, he might want to talk to her. Helpful if I can head him off at the pass.”

Richards stood up and went to the desk. He scribbled an address on a notepad and tore the top page off. He was tall and slim and had obviously been into sports as a young man. Probably ex-military.

Many politicians were. He handed the address to Grant, who folded it without looking. He’d need to refer to the map back in his hotel room anyway—the first thing he bought wherever he went. He got up from the hard leather.

“You don’t know what a brick shithouse is, do you?”

“I think the name is descriptive enough.”

“Terrace houses in Yorkshire, before inside toilets—they’d have a brick-built privy out back. Bottom of the garden or end of the yard.

Big, solid, square things. Being built like one means you’re big and solid.”

“That’s two parts of your wish come true, then, isn’t it?”

Richards pressed a button on the desk, and a bell rang somewhere in the house. Grant picked up the Pepsi and finished it in one gulp. The ice rattled in the glass. The lemon stuck to the side.

9

“Bet there’s no outside toilets here.”

“I’m sure there are places in LA you might find some. Not up here, though. I doubt you’d find many in England either nowadays.

It’s called progress and the wonders of modern plumbing. It’s only bears that shit in the woods.”

“Touché.”

Grant put the glass down. Richards didn’t offer to shake his hand, but he did come round the desk and lead Grant toward the heavy wooden door.

“Please. I love my daughter. She needs protecting from this vile industry.”

Grant was almost moved by the display of parental concern. It would have been more convincing if the daughter’s indiscretion wasn’t so harmful to Richards’ career in politics. The door opened, and the guy who’d served Grant his Pepsi waited to take the guest out. Butler or manservant or whatever he was.

Richards ruined the illusion of being a loving father. “Be discreet. You come highly recommended.”

Grant didn’t answer. Sometimes discretion was the better part of anger. He followed the butler into the hallway and almost bumped into the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

In keeping with the pretension of greatness, the hallway was bigger than most people’s houses. It wasn’t exactly Gone with the Wind impressive, but the expanse of polished-wood flooring and the sweeping staircase came pretty close. The entrance hall was wide enough to park three cars with room to spare. Wood paneling and gilt-framed oil paintings completed the picture. This place reeked of money.

10

There was so much room that bumping into your host’s wife was almost impossible. Grant wasn’t surprised she’d been hanging around near the study door. His reading of wealthy families was that there were always secrets. He wondered if the mother knew that the daughter was making hardcore porn flicks.

He dodged sideways to avoid the collision. “Sorry.”

The Englishman in him. Even though he considered himself a Yorkshireman. He always held the door open for ladies, gave up his seat for the elderly, and apologized even when it wasn’t his fault.

She reciprocated. “No, no. My fault. Sorry.”

Maura Richards’ voice was as gorgeous as her face. It dripped sex appeal. The throaty cadence was deep and rich and nowhere near as affected as her husband’s political delivery. She was tall and slim and elegant, but Grant suspected the elegance was something she had to work at. Money helped. Being drop-dead gorgeous helped even more.

Their eyes locked for three seconds, then the moment passed.

The wealthy senator’s wife and the man in faded jeans and an orange windcheater—a new one but nowhere near as pristine as the woman’s summer dress. Mrs. Richards climbed the stairs as if on an escalator, gliding more than walking. Grant was escorted out the front door. It slammed shut behind him.

He stood on the front steps for a moment and took a deep breath to remove the oppressive atmosphere of the study. The smell was the same, flowers from the border on either side of the door, but fresh air and sunshine lifted the day. The lawnmower had stopped.

He listened to the silence until it was broken by birdsong and the buzzing of insects. There was no traffic noise. It must have been

11

the only place in Los Angeles where you couldn’t hear the constant drone of the freeway.

Grant relaxed. This was the first commission in his new role, and if it wasn’t what he would have chosen, at least being part of American law enforcement took the sting out of no longer being a West Yorkshire copper. He trotted down the wide stone steps and crossed the gravel turnaround in front of the house. The sun beat down.

The sky was blue, not a hint of clouds on the horizon.

He should have known better.

He walked down the driveway between rolling lawns and wellgroomed pine trees. Swaying palms reminded him this was Southern California. It was a long walk down the hill to the nearest bus route. He preferred public transport, especially in LA, where driving in a strange city was a nightmare times ten. The ornate gate slid open on silent runners as he approached. He waved to the cameras.

Ten minutes later, he was halfway there. He hadn’t seen a single pedestrian. He wondered if wealthy people did any walking at all.

He could imagine the twitching curtains and urgent phone calls to the police reporting the stranger in the orange jacket skulking around their neighborhood.

When the vehicle pulled up beside him, he wasn’t surprised.

He turned to explain to the cop what he was doing, then paused. It wasn’t a cop car. The passenger door opened, and a big guy got out.

He was smiling, but the smile wasn’t friendly.

12

TWO Grant didn’t need to do his breathing exercises to relax. The walk in the fresh air and sunshine had already done that. He kept his limbs loose and his mind sharp. The guy was about the same height as Grant but built like a brick shithouse. Broader than the brick shithouse that Grant resembled. He smiled at the analogy. Big Dick Swelling back at the mansion probably wouldn’t have.

Grant slowed his pace but didn’t stop. The vehicle was now just beyond him on his side of the road. The big guy was on the sidewalk. Grant would have to detour around him or go between him and the open door. He went for the gap. Relaxed. Ready to move fast as he drew closer to the threat.

Twelve feet.

Steady walking pace was maybe five miles an hour. Grant approached the rear of the car. It was a big shiny American thing with a sliding door along the side behind the front passenger door.

A minivan kind of thing. The open passenger door obstructed half the sidewalk. The big guy stood three feet back and to one side, blocking the other half next to a tall conifer hedge. A narrow gap in between.

13

Eight feet.

Five miles an hour was pretty fast over a short distance. Grant glanced at the big guy, then squinted through the back window. Sun glared off the tinted glass. He couldn’t see inside. Not good. He’d identified the threat outside the car but didn’t know how many were hidden behind the reflective windows—a cop’s worst nightmare. Caution dictated that Grant should keep his distance or go around the obstacle. Grant didn’t hold with caution. He was more of a tackle trouble head-on kind of guy.

Five feet.

Since he couldn’t see inside the car, he concentrated on what he could see. The big guy with the frosty smile. He was standing with his legs apart and arms folded across his chest. Bad positioning for close-quarter combat. Grant plotted the first moves in his head. Fast knee jerk between the legs, then a short-armed elbow strike up into the throat as the guy doubled over before he could unfold his arms.

Three feet.

Grant cleared his mind. His limbs were relaxed. Time to move.

Pffft hiss.

The sliding door pushed outwards a few inches, then slid open with a pffft of compressed air and the hum of an electric motor. A soft female voice came from the interior with a pleasant Midwestern accent. “Excuse me. Could you spare a minute?”

Grant stopped and looked into the roomy interior. John Travolta had been right in Get Shorty. This was indeed the Cadillac of minivans. He stared into the eyes of the second beautiful woman he’d met in less than an hour. This must be his lucky day. He bowed his head to see inside. “Not if you’re trying to sell me something.”

“Not sell—propose.”

14

“You want to marry me?”

The woman laughed. It was infectious and completely uninhibited. The laugh lit up her eyes and exposed brilliant white teeth. A mop of unruly black hair framed her pleasant, rounded face. The dark complexion suggested South American or Italian descent. The accent discounted Mexican.

“Why don’t you jump in? I’ll talk while you ride.”

“That’s not an offer you get every day.”

She laughed again. The big guy stepped away from the door, his smile less threatening now. Grant ducked into the back, and the door slid shut. The big guy got in the front. The driver pulled away from the curb. Grant settled into his seat.

“Home, James. And don’t spare the horses.”

Her laughter filled the interior as the minivan continued down the winding hillside road. Palm trees and Beverly Hills mansions showed through the windows. Somewhere overhead a helicopter throbbed in the pale blue morning sky.

“Steven Seagal?” Grant couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

“Yes. The show’s called Lawman.”

Robin Citrin’s voice was almost as infectious as her laugh. The minivan was taking it easy, ignoring the nearest bus route and taking Grant all the way to his hotel. There were more palm trees outside now.

“That the one forced Elmore Leonard to rename his show Justified ?”

“Right. That was originally called Lawman. I forgot about that.”

15

“Saw it. First episode showed promise. Went downhill from there.”

“Justified was fiction. Lawman is real. Cameras follow Seagal on patrol.”

Grant snorted a laugh. It was nowhere near as infectious as Citrin’s. “Real? You kiddin’ me? A Hollywood actor playing at being a cop, and you think that shit isn’t scripted? Fuck me. Pardon my French. But even if it wasn’t, don’t tell me that everyone he meets on camera doesn’t act different than getting arrested by anyone else.”

“It’s advertised as real.”

“Cher’s advertised as real. She’s more plastic than an Airfix model.”

“Airfix?”

“Made plastic model kits when I was a kid. Spitfires. Tanks. Stuff like that.”

“Steven Seagal’s not an Airfix kit.”

“He’s not a cop either. Part-time special constable? Hobby bobby? Might as well stick Clint Eastwood on the street in a cowboy hat and a poncho and expect people to act like it’s real.”

“You’re not Clint Eastwood or Steven Seagal.”

Grant feigned hurt pride. “That’s somewhere between an insult and a compliment.”

“What I’m saying is, follow you around with a camera and we’ll get more authentic responses.”

“Reality TV?” “Yes.” “Stick a camera in somebody’s face, last thing you’ll get is reality.”

“The camera never lies.”

16

“The camera always lies. Depends how you edit the footage.”

Citrin backed off from trying to force Grant to accept. She tried flattery. “Bottom line is, we’d like to do a show using the Resurrection Man. The news got good coverage of you in Boston. Your name is known across America. And you look good on camera.”

The snorted laugh this time was derisive. He diverted his embarrassment by looking out the window. They’d dropped down through Hollywood and were heading toward downtown along West Seventh. Not far from the hotel now.

Grant sighed and shook his head. “I’m a cop, not a movie star.”

“Reality TV star.”

“Not one of them either. I put bad guys in jail. Don’t need cameras watching me do that.”

“You could have the final cut.”

“Final cut?”

“The final decision about what we show. Cut out what you don’t want seen.”

“Not very real, then, is it?”

“The camera never lies. Just don’t show it all.”

“Lying by omission.”

“Technical point.”

The driver called over his shoulder. “This it here?”

Grant leaned forward and looked through the windshield. The Mayfair Hotel was on the right up ahead. The lettering on the awning above the front doors read The Historic Mayfair Hotel but couldn’t hide the fact that historic meant old and old meant faded.

The Mayfair Hotel was old and faded.

“That’s it. Thanks.”

17

He sat back and looked at Robin Citrin. She was beautiful and intelligent. Grant could do a lot worse than spend time with her, but this wasn’t for him. “Lying by omission is still lying. I prefer to be more open and up front.”

“So leave everything in.”

“Can’t do that. Sometimes being open and up front isn’t how the bosses want the job to work. I’m going to have to say no.”

The minivan pulled up outside the hotel.

“Thanks for the lift though.”

Pffft hiss. The side door slid open and, not for the first time, Grant thought he was getting out into traffic. Wrong side of the road. He swung one leg onto the sidewalk and turned to say goodbye. Citrin laid one hand on his forearm. The hand was warm even through the sleeve of his orange windcheater. It pained him to say no to her.

She held a business card in her other hand. “If you change your mind.”

Grant took the card and read the name: L. Q. Patton. There was an address near Hollywood Boulevard and a telephone number. He flipped the card over and saw that she’d written her name and cell number on the back.

The warm hand was still on his arm. “You can call the office during the day”—she tapped the back of the card—“or if it’s after hours.”

He looked in her eyes to see if there was more to this than a business proposition but couldn’t tell from her expression. This was Los Angeles. You had to take that into consideration. People acted different here.

He took the card though. “Thanks. But I doubt it.”

18

He got out and stepped back from the open door. That’s when he saw the black car parked across the street with two guys staring at him through the windshield.

Grant flicked the edge of the card with his fingers several times as the door hissed shut and the minivan pulled into traffic toward downtown. It crossed the freeway bridge and disappeared from view.

The car opposite sat in the sunshine like a squat black toad. The two guys inside were pretty ugly too.

He stopped flicking the card and put it in his pocket. He walked from the edge of the sidewalk to the front door of the hotel. Under the awning. Two pairs of eyes followed him. Big square heads turned on thick necks. Broad shoulders. Grant stopped in the doorway and turned to stare them down. Thirty seconds. A minute. Two minutes.

The driver reached down and started the engine. The turn signal blinked before the car pulled into traffic, going out of town.

The passenger kept his eyes on Grant as the car passed the hotel on the opposite side of the road. He smiled and nodded once. Grant watched them go, wondering what it was with everybody smiling at him today. Then he went inside.

LA was a strange place.

19

THREE The Historic Mayfair Hotel was a thirteen-story block of ugliness. Grant’s room was on the twelfth floor, one room from the corner facing downtown. He fished the keycard out of his pocket as he entered the lobby, then paused in front of the twin elevators on the left. He threw a quick glance at the front door. The two guys in the black car had been waiting for him. That meant they knew where he was staying. He’d only arrived yesterday. His first visit with Senator Richards had been this morning. Whoever was interested in what he was doing worked fast. That kind of commitment seemed excessive for a small-time porn outfit.

Grant ignored the elevators and crossed the lobby to the reception desk. The high ceiling was carved and painted like a Michelangelo chapel. The expansive reception area took up two floors, with a balcony running around the first level, leading to a dining area and restaurant that advertised banquet facilities. Back in the good old days Grant could imagine the Mayfair hosting a banquet, but right now it could barely muster breakfast.

He stood at the reception desk until one of the staff noticed him and came over. The attractive Asian asked in broken English how 20

she could help while another Asian took a booking over the phone.

Grant asked if anything had arrived for him, and the girl said she would check. Checking entailed asking the guy on the phone, who shook his head. Grant thanked her before she could relay the message and turned toward the elevators. Passing the concierge desk, a third Asian asked if he could help. Grant reckoned there were more Japanese at the Mayfair than had attacked Pearl Harbor. Friendlier though. He thanked the valet and indicated the elevators. With no suitcases to carry and no likelihood of a tip, the valet let Grant go.

Five minutes later he was checking the twelfth-floor corridor for strangers before slipping his keycard into the slot.

The first thing he did was check the room for intruders. Having two heavies watching for him out front suggested there might be more inside. There weren’t. Next thing he did was examine the room in case it had been searched. Not like in that James Bond movie where Sean Connery stuck a hair across the wardrobe doors and poured talcum powder over the briefcase catch—Grant just looked in the wardrobe and drawers for any sign of disturbance. Being exarmy meant his drawers were immaculate. In the military, tidiness was next to godliness. If you didn’t keep your equipment and living space tidy, then your sergeant, who was God in the army, would make you pay. That made it easier to see if anyone had been rooting around in his drawers. Nobody had.

Out of habit he slid his hand beneath the neatly folded T-shirts.

The velvet box was still there. He lifted it out and felt the comforting weight in his hands. He laid it on the dresser and opened the lid. The stethoscope lay curled like a sleeping snake. The battered blue velvet of the exterior gave way to the white silk lining of the 21

inside. A faded American flag had been stitched into the inside of the lid. The stars and stripes added color to the plain white interior.

The name scribbled beneath the flag had faded too but would never disappear—the female army medic who had served and loved with him. Killed in action. A stain on his heart. Grant touched it gently with one finger and smiled at a secret memory. Several memories.

Then he snapped the case shut and put it back in the drawer.

Something caught his eye that he hadn’t noticed when he came in. A red light was blinking on the phone beside the bed. He walked around the double bed and sat next to the cabinet facing the window. The curtains were open. Downtown Los Angeles stood out against the horizon, perhaps a mile away along West Seventh Street.

Sunshine glinted off mirrored windows and polished chrome. A perfect blue sky powdered the background, the reason the movie industry had settled on Los Angeles to create the Hollywood legend.

Good light and minimal bad weather.

A helicopter crawled across the sky. A second disappeared behind a skyscraper. Being a pilot in LA must be a nightmare, trying not to collide with all the other pilots hovering above the city. A siren started up on the freeway—the other thing that was a constant in the City of Angels. Grant turned from the window toward the red blinking light. A message on the phone. He picked up the handset, pressed the second button from the left, and listened to the voice he’d first heard in a hospital room at Massachusetts General.

The message was brief and to the point. Judging by the conversations Grant had had with him in Boston last year, that was the way he operated. Clear instructions and a confident manner were the signs of a strong leader, a man so powerful he didn’t feel the need to belabor the point.

22

Grant listened to the message.

“Payment was delayed by internal considerations. It is now in your account. You can collect it from any bank or ATM. Any problems, you know how to contact me. Good luck.”

Grant didn’t need to listen to it again, so he hung up. Money was the first order of business. Figuring his next move was second. He decided to reverse the order and took the map he’d bought at LAX out of the bedside drawer. There was a narrow desk in one corner of the room, but he spread it open on the bed instead. It wasn’t a closedetail street map, but it covered all of Los Angeles. Main roads and area names were clearly marked. Side roads and back streets were merely sketches of their true size.

He took out the torn page that Richards had written his daughter’s address on. The street name was no use yet, but he found the area in the foothills west of Hollywood. A canyon road not too far from her parents’ Beverly Hills mansion. He doubted it would be a log cabin rebellion against the wealth of her upbringing. Nothing on that side of town was exactly poverty row.

He slid his finger across the map toward town, past Beverly Hills and a little north: West Hollywood. Still an exclusive area. Then along the two best-known streets in LA: Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard. He fingered the card Robin Citrin had given him. There wasn’t enough detail on the map to locate the TV company’s address. He didn’t plan on visiting it anyway. Still, his finger lingered at the thought of seeing Citrin again.

The other address he needed wasn’t available yet. Finding out which company made The Hunt for Pink October was his next move.

The best place to find a video store was probably the heart of the

23

place that made the most movies: Hollywood. His finger tapped the map. Maybe some things were meant to be.

ATM followed by a trip to Hollywood was the plan.

That’s not how it worked out.

24